1957: Actor Humphrey Bogart died. Widow Lauren Bacall placed a gold whistle in his coffin with the inscription: “If you need anything, just whistle” – a line from their first film together, To Have And Have Not.

1989: British Muslims held public burnings of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses.

1997: The trial began of footballers John Fashanu, Bruce Grobbelaar and Hans Segers for allegedly being bribed by a Far Eastern gambling ring to throw matches. All three were later acquitted.

On This Day Last Year: The eurozone was thrown into fresh turmoil after the credit worthiness of France and eight other nations were downgraded by a leading ratings agency. Standard & Poor’s stripped France of its gold-plated AAA credit rating, and lowered the rating levels on Austria, Malta, Slovakia, Slovenia, Cyprus, Italy, Portugal and Spain.

1879: The first England v Wales football international was played at Kennington Oval in London, England winning 2-1.

1933: The “bodyline bowling” row flared in an Australian v England test in Adelaide.

1977: 82 people died when a Sydney-bound train derailed.

2009: Children’s television presenter Tony Hart, who appeared on art shows for nearly 50 years, died at the age of 83.

On This Day Last Year: Britain looked set to be asked to commit more money to the International Monetary Fund, after the global organisation confirmed it was planning to raise an additional 500 billion US dollars to shore up ailing economies.